Word: working
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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There is undoubtedly plenty of material in the class, but very few men, on entering College, realize the amount of work necessary to fit them to represent their own class during the summer, or even to take a good position in the Club crews. Too many wait till late in the winter or till the spring to begin work in earnest, and then, as it has been often proved, it is too late to obtain sufficient endurance for the ordeal of a long race...
...fact is, that neither the character of our community nor the traditions of the college are such as to encourage sporting habits. A large proportion of our students - large enough to determine the prevailing tone of the institution - are sons of farmers, - frugal, industrious fellows, who are working their own way through college, and who, at the time of the regatta, are swinging the scythe in the hayfield, or handling the compass and chain on the railroad. Besides, though they are poor, they are proud, and would regard it as beneath the dignity of a free-born Vermonter to expose...
...first clause of this sentence, "If you will get up a contest in some honest and useful work, and will insure us against the intrusion of gamblers and blacklegs, we will engage to be 'represented,'" reflects beautifully upon the colleges who took part in the races last summer, for it implies that an intercollegiate regatta is not a contest in some honest work; and the last clause shows his implicit belief that Saratoga society is made up of gamblers and blacklegs, who prey upon the unsuspecting and guileless youth that are drawn to that "sink of iniquity" by the regatta...
There was one idea contained in the letter which struck me as being particularly valuable and worthy of note, and that was to have contests in some useful and honest work between students. Looking from both a pecuniary and moral point of view, how much better it would be for Harvard to give up her boating and athletic sports, which not only involve great expenditure of money, but also foster vice by creating in students a desire for betting, and devote a part of the money hither-to spent on these to the purchase of agricultural implements and the formation...
...What a proud day it would be for old Harvard to witness her sons manfully endeavoring either to outplough and outhoe their competitors, or to dig ditches of given lengths against time! Then, and not until then, can we realize that we are engaging in some useful and honest work, and not foolishly spending our time and forces in such an exhibition of brute strength as a regatta...